My NaNoWriMo Quest

It’s the first day of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I’m a third of the way through my daily goal (wipes sweaty forehead). By the time I’ve finished this post, I’ll be over halfway and then the hard stuff will begin.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with NaNo. I love the idea of writing a book in a month, but I hate the pressure that comes with trying to pump out 1,667 words a day. In my experience pressure does not make diamonds, or even a poorly written first draft. Instead, all I end up with is a heaping mass of frustration and self-flagellation.

Like, right now, I’m writing this, watching Man vs Food⁠1 and thinking about what I’m making for dinner tonight.

This year, I’m taking a different tack for NaNo. My NaNoWriMo will be less about the 50k-words and more about developing good writing habits while exploring ways to increase my productivity. Currently, the experiment involves having multiple projects on the go at once, doing a little bit of each every day.

The idea behind the method is to keep my motivation high by having smaller tasks that are easy to accomplish, while also ticking off some of the things stacking up on my to-do list.

The plan is to revise 2000 words of Regan, write a 500-word blog post and 700-words of the shorty short (or shorty, as I often find myself calling them), every day of November.

I’m tired just thinking about it.

The hardest bit will be the shorty. At the moment, I feel about as creative as cardboard, the really boring brown kind they use for packing boxes. Hopefully, I can kick that feeling and turn the cardboard into a really cool spaceship, or a race track. (That’s a clue BTW. Racetrack. Hero. Think about it.)

Tally for today, I’ve spent three hours on the couch and done my first two tasks. Not bad, but not great either. Will shoot for better tomorrow.

1 Watching TV while writing has to be one of the most inefficient ways to write. I don’t recommend it, but if you can’t help yourself, the Food Channel is awesome.